Development and initial testing of the BABY-BISCUIT in an at-risk population

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) via screeners for diagnostic measures are a high priority. At present, there is no consensus on one screener due to the need for better sensitivity and specificity. In this study, we report on the development and utility of the BABY-BISCUIT, a six-item screener based on a modified subset of items from the Baby and Infant Screen for Children with aUtIsm Traits (BISCUIT).

Methods

A sample of 504 children between 17–3 9months of age, who consisted of toddlers identified as at-risk for neurodevelopmental and other health disorders, were tested during an annual screening through the Louisiana EarlySteps program.

Results

An exploratory factor analysis yielded a one-factor solution (X2 = 48.62, df = 9, p = <.001). High sensitivity (i.e., 100.0%) at the cost of reduced specificity (i.e., 33.3%, AUC = 0.957) was found for an optimal screening cutoff score of 1.

Conclusions

Findings from this study suggest that the BABY-BISCUIT has the potential to be a short and easily administered screener for ASD to inform whether further ASD assessment is necessary. Further investigation of convergent validity with established ASD measures is recommended.

KEYWORDS:

• Screener
• early identification
• autism spectrum disorder

Disclosure statement

Dr. Matson’s wife owns and sells the BISCUIT. The BABY-BISCUIT may be used free of charge. Megan Callahan and Josh Montrenes report no conflict of interest. .

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.